


Creatures

by Tozette



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Magical Accidents, Shapeshifting, not a lot of body horror but tag to be sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 13:24:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5335694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tozette/pseuds/Tozette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morrigan learns to shape shift. It does not always go to plan. Flemeth is remarkably unhelpful about ninety eight per cent of the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creatures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thirtywhacks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirtywhacks/gifts).



"Everybody starts somewhere," Flemeth says philosophically. Then she pauses. "Or is it that everybody ends somewhere? Hmm. No matter, there's no end without a beginning. Start, girl."

So Morrigan does.

Her mother is strange, distant - dedicated. She knows nothing else, but there are pieces of her that whisper that this cannot be all, cannot be enough. But there is nobody else to learn from, and for all her flaws, Flemeth's lessons are good.

The first creature she learns is the spider.

Morrigan is not an eight legged arthropod. Her skeleton is firmly inside her body. Her fingers are pale, her skin is thin and soft. She has two eyes, and they see very clearly.

It is hard to become confused about being a spider. There's no comfort in it, little temptation. Other forms - mammals, ones with warm fur and social habits, mostly - are dangerous to the mind. Animals are simpler.

"You wouldn't be the first shape-changer to get lost, girl," purrs Flemeth ominously, looking ragged and ancient in the light from the hearth. It shines in her eyes until they're red.

Idly, Morrigan considers again that her mother is probably an abomination.

Flemeth smiles like she knows exactly what Morrigan is thinking. "Well? The soup's getting cold."

Morrigan grits her teeth. She rarely suffers in silence, but in this case complaining will only delay the inevitable.

The Fade leaks through her, opens around her. She unfolds, uncoils, threads unravelling, twisting, reforming; a new nature, a new tapestry.

And then everything stills.

Flemeth's smile is not proud. It is not victorious or bitter or - anything, really.

Morrigan shifts uncertainly on her new legs. There are too many, too much difference: her insides are wrong, her eyes are wrong. There is a sense of terror in the change that she had never expected.

"Not so easy, is it?" Flemeth asks, baring her teeth. It's just a smile, an expression that flickers over her old face. It comes. It goes.

Morrigan clicks her spinnerets. She knows she is venomous. Liquid death lurks in her bite and she wonders if the taste of Flemeth would be worth it. She wonders if it would even hurt her.

* * *

Morrigan cannot change back.

Well, no, that's not quite right, actually. Morrigan can change back... most of the way. She has her skeleton, her own internal organs, yellow eyes and dark hair and thin human skin. Her hands are dextrous and pale, and her breasts and belly and thighs are familiar.

Somewhat less familiar are the six other legs protruding from her. Hideous, yes, but there's a surprising elegance to it: her lower back doesn't extend into human buttocks anymore. Now her tailbone elongates pale and yellowish and protrudes like the bustle of an ugly Orlesian dress. From beneath, long spindly legs extend. They are hard on the outside, yellowish-pale like all her bones.

They end in bony hands.

She recognises them: deft fingers, pale skin. They grab at the floor of their hut, clinging, panicked, as she tries to move. Their nails scrape and break upon the floor, scrambling on and on.

For three days Morrigan limps about like a new foal. Turning back completely seems like a fool's errand.

Flemeth makes their stew. She tells her, cackling, that Morrigan has 'more than enough on her hands.'

She serves it to her in a wooden bowl.

There are flies in it.

Morrigan picks them delicately out and leaves their small waterlogged bodies on the table. She wishes she still had her poison.

"Not hungry?" Flemeth asks archly, rolling a dead fly over their table with idle fingers.

"'Tis not to  _my_  taste, mother," Morrigan says pointedly.

* * *

(Morrigan returns herself to her own form the next morning, and neither she nor Flemeth comments on the timing.)

* * *

The first time Morrigan turns into a swarm is an unmitigated disaster.

The change splits her self, her identity and her mind, splinters her perceptions; she is a thousand buzzing particles and her compound eyes see everything from every angle. Vibrations in the air collide with her fuzzy sides and buffet her wings.

The insects fall from their flight and land on the floor of the hut, and it is all Morrigan can do to lay there in pieces, waiting for the sickness to pass.

As long as she doesn't try to fly - or crawl, or move her eyes, or, really -

She turns back and it's in tiny, bite-sized versions of herself, all frightened and splintered, talking over one another, and is Morrigan's voice always that shrill? No. Certainly not.

She can see from all of their eyes, and each and every tiny Morrigan cries out.

Morrigan has heard of sea sickness but never thought to experience it. She lives deep in the Korcari Wilds: the closest body of water of any size is the ocean and she has no interest in trekking halfway across the Brecilian Forest to see it.

But this, she imagines, must be what that's like. Every time one of her pieces moves her awareness rebels. It's too separate, too strange and different and  _wrong_ , she cannot - she  _cannot_  -

She wakes in bed, whole but nauseated. She shudders at the memory.

"All that practice," says her mother, looming at the bed's foot, "and for what?"  There is something about Flemeth's voice that creaks, ancient not in the way of people but of deep roots and worn rocks. 

"What?" Morrigan repeats hoarsely.

"I didn't teach you magic so you could forget yourself before you'd begun."

"I think I have more than begun, mother," she says drily, slumping back.

Flemeth makes a noise that suggests that the things Morrigan  _thinks_ she knows number far greater than those she does. But she is still waiting for an answer and it takes Morrigan longer than she'd like to come up with something.

"'Twas no mistake with the spell," she mutters finally. Morrigan will never admit she panicked, but she thinks Flemeth knows. She usually knows.

Then Morrigan has to vomit. It stings. Her mind feels raw, broken into pieces. Her steps are unsteady.

Flemeth watches her for a few long moments. She is not particularly sympathetic, but then she never is. "Did you learn something, girl?" she demands when Morrigan is done retching.

"I-" Did she? She swallows, breathes: bile and acid, fuzzy teeth. Her head hurts. "Yes," she decides.

Flemeth leaves her alone to clean up after that. The next day, Morrigan tries again. And again.

And again.

* * *

(Magic is a matter of will and discipline. Morrigan is as stubborn as they come.)

* * *

There are four weeks in which Flemeth is not allowed to step foot into Morrigan's nest.

It's the first time Morrigan gets lost, and it's painfully predictable. A crow: sleek and dark, with glossy coal-black feathers and a very sharp beak. She is large, for a crow, but her bones are hollow and the thrill of flight is...

There is nothing like it.

She is never cold, rarely tired. When she flies, the Chasind believe she is a creature of war and death.

It is easy to be a crow. They are clever, but they are simple creatures, brutally pragmatic, and terribly uncomplicated.

When Morrigan turns back, she leaves something behind and she brings something with her.

Her hair has become feathers: sharp, glossy flight feathers around her face, coverts behind her ears. There is a soft fringe of scapular feathers trailing down her neck and along her spine. Her teeth are gone and her eyes are round and dark, huge in her head, with enormous black pupils.

Morrigan has no wings, but she can never remember. She staggers where she should hop, stumbles when she wants to take off. She talks to herself, wild and dark-eyed, and ignores Flemeth completely - except when she comes to Morrigan's nest.

Flemeth will not speak to Morrigan.

Morrigan talks almost incessantly: noises her mouth can make without teeth, words that have meaning but are strung together into sentences without structure or context. She yells. She laughs and screams and makes enough noise for any three other people.

Flemeth does not act like she even really notices.

Morrigan is not a social creature, not on her own, but a crow is.

Flemeth won't speak, but she does lay out a hundred shiny things: bits of old jewellery, iridescent feathers, bits of metal, brightly coloured cloth.

Morrigan collects them, and when her mother needs a spoon she nearly takes her hand off, shrieking and spitting with her toothless mouth.

Flemeth waits outside her nest with an ironic smile that isn't half as friendly as it looks.

* * *

(Morrigan would prefer not to talk about that month of her life. Ever. So naturally Flemeth brings it up weekly.)

**Author's Note:**

> If there was anything you particularly liked, please let me know in the comments.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Creatures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6284209) by [thriceandonce (sylvaine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvaine/pseuds/thriceandonce)




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